Over the 170 years of its history, the United States was in colonial dependence on Britain. The settlement of the New World was the work of individuals and companies that have received such permission from the monarch of England. Differences in the social character of these colonizers predetermined different colonization trends in the regions of their settlement and conditionally divided them into three groups: 1) joint-stock companies of the bourgeois type; 2) Protestants and other religious minorities; 3) aristocrats. Thus, there were three types of colonies: the northern colonies - New England (Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island), Middle colonies, (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware) and South (Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina and Georgia).
Initially, all three groups were in more or less equal conditions, but the New World was more favorable to the development of bourgeois relations. In 1607, the shareholders of the London Virginia Company established the Jamestown fort within the territory, known as Virginia. Shareholders of the companies of the South concentrated the greatest number of lands in their hands and began to cultivate highly profitable tobacco (“The Southern Colonies”). In 1619, the representative government was established in Virginia, and the first black slaves were imported to the South. These two important events have determined the socio-political characteristics of the southern colonies for a long time. Driven by the capitalist motives and due to the lack of virtually free labor, the landowners from the southern states began to use slaves. Thus, the vast number of slaves was concentrated in the southern colonies, and almost half of them were in Virginia. “By the early 1700s enslaved Africans made up a growing percentage of the colonial population” (“Colonial America”). The majority of the goods exported to England was made in the southern colonies.
New England formed the second type of colonies which included the settlements founded by the Protestant immigrants on the north-eastern part of the New World. The moderate and democratic directions were allocated from Protestants movement. The representatives of the moderate wing were concentrated in the Massachusetts. The power belonged to the priests, and only the obedient flocks were allocated with the civil rights. Only members of the Congregational Church were considered as members of the state. Moreover, they persecuted dissidents: Baptists, Independents, and Quakers.
The democratic principles have taken root better in other, smaller Protestant settlements in New England. The first and most famous among them was the New Plymouth. The group of pilgrims signed the association in civil political and other issues in order to create and respect fair and equal laws for everyone. After unsuccessful attempts to establish, the collective land use general meeting allocate plots of land for the settlers. In the New England, the industry and commerce were developed stronger than in other colonies. Settlers in Rhode Island and Connecticut had the right to elect their legislatures and governors independently. Shipbuilding industry was very strong in New England (“The New England Colonies”).
Middle colonies like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York formed the third colony types that had elements of two previous types. Middle colonies were the area of wheat farming. Middle colonies were created for the exploitation of natural resources; the population of these colonies were various. The extensive river system and access to the Atlantic Ocean played an important role in the development of the middle colonies (“The Middle Colonies”).
Works Cited
“Colonial America (1492-1763)”. The Library of Congress. Web. Accessed 04 Feb 2015 at
<http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/colonial/jb_colonial_subj.html>
“The Middle Colonies”. Radford University, Virginia. Web. Accessed 04 Feb 2015 at
<http://www.radford.edu/~rvshelton/Middle.htm>
“The New England Colonies”. Boston University, School of Education. Web. Accessed 04
Feb 2015 at <http://ed101.bu.edu/StudentDoc/Archives/ED101sp06/areuter/page1.html>
“The Southern Colonies”. University of Groningen. Web. Accessed 04 Feb 2015 at
<http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/outlines/history-1994/the-colonial-period/the-southern-colonies.php>
